American Athletic Conference

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

If people are more concerned about the venue than about the program itself, then priorities are out of whack. Support your university, your team, and the students no matter what. Talk of a $50+ million stadium can wait until after the program gets established.

[Veritas]

If people are more concerned about the venue than about the program itself, then priorities are out of whack. Support your university, your team, and the students no matter what. Talk of a $50+ million stadium can wait until after the program gets established.

Disagree. Normally your point makes sense--- until you look at Cessna. Starting (and losing) for 5-10 years in Cessna is going to drain support. I'd rather put the energy and increase support and ticket sales in a N Texas, Akron, or CSU stadium from the get-go

https://stadium.colostate.edu

[Cdizzle]

Can we just use the baseball stadium? I believe it's vacant.

[AndShock]

If people are more concerned about the venue than about the program itself, then priorities are out of whack. Support your university, your team, and the students no matter what. Talk of a $50+ million stadium can wait until after the program gets established.

Are more people gonna want to go to an event at the Kansas Coliseum or Intrust Bank Arena?

[Cdizzle]

If a significant number of people are choosing to go or not go to a WSU football game based on the shiny-ness of the stadium they are playing in, we should just shut it down right now.

[AndShock]

If a significant number of people are choosing to go or not go to a WSU football game based on the shiny-ness of the stadium they are playing in, we should just shut it down right now.

Depends on how not shiny the old one is.

[RoyalShock]

The problem with Cessna now is that you're going to have trouble getting students there. They'll just pile into rooms at Shocker Hall and watch from there.



Ok, maybe not, but you never know.

[1972Shocker]

Based on Dr. Bardo's comments this study really isn't about athletics so much as it is about using athletic programs as a tool to grow enrollment. More specifically to grow enrollment of traditional students. Dr. Bardo has guaranteed that our football program will be a money loser. The value proposition Dr. Bardo is trying to figure out is will the investment in and losses from the football program generate enough additional enrollment to provide a net positive return on investment. IMHO that will a very tough question to answer.

At this point we have one program that generates any significant student interest and that is men's basketball and even then it is common on ShockerNet to complain about student tickets not being used and it's not like it is a huge alotment of student tickets. A bad football program will not generate the desired effect. So some questions to answer: 1. Will a good football program generate the desired enrollment growth? 2. Will it have to be FBS football or would a high level FCS football suffice. 3. What are the probabilities we can have a successful FBS program? A successful FCS program?

Is there any good way to reliably know the answers or even the probabilities of these questions.

@AndShock stated that it is obviously a huge risk but one he thinks we should take. What are the risks? Can they be adequately identified and quantified? Is this a risk the entire athletic program at the D-1 level risk? So not only do the potential benefits have to be studied but the potential downside needs to be thoroughly understood. Then you make a risk/reward, cost/benefit decision.

What are the alternatives, if any, to achieving the same goals of increasing traditional enrollment? How do they compare in terms of risk/reward? cost/benefit?

Would we really want to undertake such a daunting task with an interim athletic director leading the athletic department? Will anyone pick up the telephone and ask Jim Schaus his opinion? Maybe they already have.

I think this process very well will drag on for a good while at this point.

[AZ Shocker]

If a significant number of people are choosing to go or not go to a WSU football game based on the shiny-ness of the stadium they are playing in, we should just shut it down right now.

...but there are shinny happy people that like shinny happy stadiums.

[1972Shocker]

I always sensed that the most important thing was to serve reasonably priced beer and good nachos.

OTOH, in this day and age maybe the best way to draw students to Cessna stadium would be to forget about football and turn Cessna into the WSU safe zone with open and unrestricted bathrooms.

[Cdizzle]

Stale nachos and stolen proprietary images have been known to sour the mood of some fans.

[OregonShocker]

Yes, I would. How many others would? I couldn't tell you either.

I can't tell you either, but I can guess it WON'T be more than at the end of the football era in the 1980's. Otherwise, obviously it would still be here. Key is whether the outside components (Conference money, big name donors, etc.) can make it something OTHER than a financial drain on the athletic dept.

[im4wsu]

Then I presume things will take care of themselves. But that isn't really the point. Betting hundreds of millions of dollars that a start-up football team is going to be a winner in 5 years is not a recipe for success. It's just people being excited about a shiny new toy somebody rich let them play with. And once the shine wears off, then what? People need to be committed for the long haul.

Cdizzle, how'd you make the leap from $20 - $50 million to "hundreds of millions of dollars"? Are you planning on spending $$$ on players like the SEC does? If so, then we should easily have a winning team!

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Disagree. Normally your point makes sense--- until you look at Cessna. Starting (and losing) for 5-10 years in Cessna is going to drain support. I'd rather put the energy and increase support and ticket sales in a N Texas, Akron, or CSU stadium from the get-go

https://stadium.colostate.edu

I would agree if Cessna were to remain as is. But $20 million is not pocket change when it comes to renovating an existing stadium, and it would do much more than just put lipstick on a pig when $40 million would build a new stadium. Cessna might still be a pig, but it would be a classy, attractive pig with quite a few amenities for an FCS program, which is what we'd have to be for a few years. Talk of a new stadium can wait until talk of an FBS conference becomes realistic.

Wichitans are notorious for getting sticker shock almost effortlessly. There is no sense in freaking out the public with inflated costs of reviving the program. I'm sure Bardo is aware of who his audience is, and his audience is miserly and solicitous. By pursuing Cessna as the venue, I believe he's attempting to balance vision with practically, and practicality is gospel in Wichita. That's the way this is going to get done.

[wusphlash]

Something to consider when comparing football and basketball attendance. We have close to 20 home basketball games, sometimes multiple games per week, Saturday through Sunday. With football you will have 5/7 home games almost always on Saturday. In my opinion it takes far more commitment to use your basketball tickets than it would football. This applies to students as well as the general public.